Irish
Gaeilge is the First Official language of the Republic of Ireland. While English is the actual first language of most Irish people, those in Gaeltacht areas speak it as their first language, and almost all Irish people have it as a second language. The Irish language has 3 dialects: *Gaeilge na Mumhan (Munster Irish) *Gaeilge Chonnacht (Connacht Irish) *Gaeilge Uladh (Ulster Irish) There are Gaeltachta (Irish-speaking areas) in all 4 provinces of Ireland. The Gaeltacht Bill that passed in 2012 could mean that areas such as Ennis and Clondalkin could gain the status of Líonra Gaeilge (areas with strong Irish-speaking communities) over the next few years. There is also a Permanant North American Gaeltacht in Canada (their offical website is here), so Murricans and Canadians can go up there and learn Irish if they want (it's probably a lot cheaper than coming to Ireland for practise). Apparently, there was also a Newfoundland dialect of Irish up until pretty recently Also, bear in mind that while the Irish name for the language is Gaeilge, in English we refer to it as 'Irish', not 'Gaelic'. Gaelic is a language group (comprising of Irish, Scots and Manx), and if you refer to Irish as Gaelic, you'll sound like an American tourist. Resources Textbooks *Basic Irish: A Grammar and Workbook *Intermediate Irish: A Grammar and Workbook *Teach Yourself: Complete Irish *Colloquial Irish: The Complete Course for Beginners *Briathra na Gaeilge (Irish Verbs) *Gaeilge Gan Stró!- Beginners Level: A Multimedia Irish Language Course for Adults *Leabhar Gramadaí Gaeilge/ Irish Grammar Book by Nollaig Mac Congail This is a great book on Irish grammar (we used it in university). Link is to the English-language version, but there's one in Irish too. For beginners, it might be a better idea to get the English one first Learning Sites *Daltaí Meaning 'students'. Brilliant site for learning, tons of stuff here *Irish For All A new site for adult learners where you can choose you level, add friends, join groups etc. *Bitesize Irish Gaelic A site with a whole load of small irish lessons, looks pretty handy! *Blás Meaning 'taste' (or 'accent'). This is a BBC site with very short lessons in basic stuff *Learn Irish With Liam Very basic lessons in Irish, good for beginners *Abair Leat Kind of like an Irish version of Facebook. It also has learning resources (in the Oide section), so it's well worth signing up *Verbix A site with a lot of Irish grammar *An Tobar 'The Well', this is an interesting site with grammar for getting around in Irish, everything from going out to government departments Meetups and Conversational Groups *Most universities in Ireland have Irish-language clubs, e.g. Trinity, UCC, UCD, NUIG , Queens, etc. There's probably loads more (some universities have 2 or more), so have a look yourself. *ReRá These guys hold a conversational group in the Franciscan Well in Cork every so often. Seems to primarily a chat while having a few drinks, but they do competitions and stuff too. I'll update this when I know more about them. *Na Gaeil Óga CLG An Irish-speaking GAA club founded in Dublin a few years ago. Radio Stations '''all of these, look for a button saying Éist ('listen') or Éist Linn ('listen to us') *Raidió na Gaeltachta (aka RnaG) This is the main Irish-language radio station. Lots of traditional music and conversation. It can be a little overly-focused on rural Gaeltacht issues, however it broadcasts Anocht FM from 9pm to 1am, which is aimed at a younger audience us. *Raidió Fáilte This is a station based in Belfast. It's pretty good, they play some great tunes. Being in the North, they speak in the Ulster dialect (or, at least, standard Irish with an Ulster flavour), which is a little different from Munster and Connacht dialects; it's great for getting used to hearing that accent. *Raidió Na Life (Liffey Radio) A long-running station based in Dublin. You can listen to it online, and they also have podcasts. *Raidió Rí-Rá A radio station aimed at younger people. They tend to play a lot of top-40 music, so there's less conversation, but worth a listen anyway '''TV Stations *TG4 (Pronounced "tee-gee-ceathair") This is Ireland's Irish-language TV station. They're producing some good stuff lately (especially good travel programs, for some reason), so its well worth a watch. They usually put English subtitles on their shows as well. Newspapers *Nós Online and print-edition magazine about music, movies, technology etc. The monthly print edition is on sale in Easons for €4 (and also in Reads on Nassau St. in Dublin). It's really good, probably the best Irish magazine around the place atm! *Nuacht 24 Online and Printed (weekly) newspaper based in Belfast *Foinse *Beo *BBC Irish The BBC website for Irish, with loads of content. Further proof that Gaeilge seems to be doing fairly well up in the North! *Saol na Gaeilge An online magazine in Irish *iGaeilge A current-affairs blog Forums *Boards.ie's Gaeilge Forum Always a bit of activity going on here, loads of people willing to help and chat *r/Gaeilge Reddit's Gaeilge subreddit *Politics.ie Gaeilge Forum Similar to Boards.ie, just with more of a focus on politics *Daltaí.com Forums Very active Irish-learning forums *Foram na Gaeilge New Gaeilge forums Videos *The Best is Yet To Come The main theme to Metal Gear Solid is in Irish! *Taibhse by Luan Parle. This is one of many songs that were rerecorded in Irish for the laugh (there's tons of them on youtube). This is one of the better ones imo *Ba Mhaith Lion Bruíon Le D'Athair Irish version of the Rubberbandits 'I wanna fight your father'. Dats limerick citaaay *Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom Short movie about a Chinese guy who learns Irish. It's pretty well-known. *Filleann an Feall A famous short movie. It also features Cillian Murphy (Scarecrow in Batman Begins and Fischer in Inception), before he got really famous. *Gaelgory, AKA T-Rex Ó Saurus. He's a teacher from somewhere up the counry that has gone mental and decided to make videos in Irish featuring a plastic T-Rex. *Avicii Vs. Lurgan: Wake Me Up One of a number of videos done by students in an Irish summer college, its surprisingly good! *Amhrán na gCupán Another video from Lurgan, and really well done. Dictionaries *Fóclóir Gaeilge Bearla le Niall Ó Dónaill Pretty much the best dictionary you can get for Irish *Focail An online dictionary *Fócloir Foras na Gaeilge's new online dictionary project. It has loads of stuff, with Irish neologisms, examples of usage, sound files, etc. Seems more user-friendly than focail.ie Software & Games *Get The Focal Pretty good dictionary app for smartphones *Firefox is available through Irish! *Irish is available as a language option for Facebook. I highly recommend using it, it's a brilliant way to keep up your Irish on a regular basis *Cléclic A site with downloadable video games in Irish *Site with Irish versions of software Includes Bittorrent, Utorrent, Firefox, and a few others. If the software has a Gaeilge setting, it highlights it. *Minecraft Apparently, someone is doing an Irish translation of Minecraft. He's not far off finished, by the look of it, so keep an eye on it! *Gaelchló Interesting site where you can download font sets of old Irish Script (the kind that was used before the 20th Century spelling reforms) for use on your computer *Skype as Gaeilge A project to create an unofficial Irish setting for Skype. It's not complete yet, but watch this space (It's at 85% atm. Weirdly, the one for Scots Gaelic is at 100%) Novels *Dúnmharú ar an Dart (Murder on the Dart), by Ruaidhrí Ó Báille. This book tends to be used a lot in schools, particularly for Junior Cert, so is great for people who are new to Irish. Some lad from Dublin rapping about it *''Séadna'' by Peadar Ua Laoghaire. A very traditional type of story about a man who does a deal with the Devil. Written in the early 20th century, before the standardisation of the language. Ua Laoghaire was a Munster Irish speaker, so he decided to write a book based on what he considered to be good Irish. Some editions were published in Standard Irish though (which would set an tAthair Ua Laoghaire spinning in his grave), so be careful. His original contains not one word that he wouldn't have heard spoken in Cork at the time (if the edition has words like 'bhíos' instead of 'bhí mé', its probably the original version) *An Béal Bocht (The Poor Mouth) by Myles na gCopaleen/Flann O'Brien/ Brian O'Nolan (all the same guy, very famous Irish writer). This is a short novel which makes fun of the genre of novels such as those written by Peig Sayers ('Peig') or Tomás Ó Criothain ('An tOileánach'), which are all about how hard life was in the poor areas of the Gaeltacht such as the Blasket Islands. The name comes from the phrase 'an béal bocht a chur ort' (to put on the poor mouth), which means to exaggerate your hardships to get people to pity you. Get the English version and read them side-by-side, it makes it easier (and you'll understand the jokes better). Courses *Gaelport This is a big list of classes (irl and online) all over the place, both in Ireland and in other countries (England, Canada, Australia, etc) *GaelChultúr These guys do classes in various places around the country, including Dublin. Apparently they do classes for every level, and have been awarded third-level status. *NUIG Course for non-Irish people *Oideas Gael Adult courses up in the Gaeltacht in Donegal *Oidhreacht Chorca Dhaoine They offer courses in Corca Dhaoine in Kerry *Canadian Gaeltacht These guys allegedly run courses up in the Canadian Gaeltacht, but their site hasn't been updated in ages (this might be just because they're not very good with computers imo). I'd say ring them up and ask, it'd be a handy resource for those wanting to learn it in North America *Daltaí This is a great list of classes around Murrica and Canada, but also in other places *Gael Linn An Irish language organisation that run Adult courses and have various other resources *Foras na Gaeilge An organisation for promoting Irish. They run classes as well apparently *Ranganna Online courses in Irish Misc. *Memes na Gaeilge Some of these are actually pretty funny *Úsádim Facebook as Gaeilge A facebook group for people who use the Irish language setting on Facebook. The guy who runs it puts up loads of pictures, seanfhocail, etc., so its a handy one to Like! *Vicipéid Wikipedia in Irish *Doegen Records Web Project Really interesting site- it's a digital archive of a ton of recordings made at the start of the 20th century of various dialects, including now-extinct ones such as Armagh, Tipperary and Tyrone Irish. Click on your county on the map, and it'll show you all the recordings it has; you can stream the recordings (and download the mp3s if you like), and there's both transcriptions of the recordings and translations of them on each page. What better way to get (back) into learning the language than by learning then native dialect of your area? *Mise Ciara Blog by some girl about Irish and Scots Gaelic with some interesting stuff *Logainm The Irish placenames database. If you're bored and you like history, look up your area, it can be pretty interesting *GaelSkype Apparently this is a group which practises Irish over Skype. Never used it myself (and from the group members it looks like mostly Americans), but it might be a handy way to get a bit of basic oral practise, which is invaluable *Lel *Talk Irish A page with loads of links to resources (I've included some of them in the sticky already) *Boards.ie Resources thread More Irish-learning resources from boards.ie (again, I've included most of them already) *Big list of resources There's a good bit of stuff in this list. I haven't had time to go through all of it yet, so give it a look yourself Internet/ 4chan Terms *Téacscaint/ Idirlíoncaint cheat sheet *GRMA: Go Raibh Maith Agat (thanks) *Nasc (link) *GOA: Gáire Ós Ard (lol) *Tóinghortaithe (Butthurt) *SnaG: Snáithe na Gaeilge (Irish Language Thread) *Cacphost/ Cacphostaigh/ ag cacphostáil (a Shitpost/ to Shitpost/ Shitposting) *>m'an: M'Adhaigh Nuair (>mfw) *>amn: An Mothú Nuair (>tfw) *Trollaigh/ ag trolláil/ an trollaíocht (To Troll/ Trolling (verb)/ Trolling (noun) ) *Ciumhsach (Edgy) *An iomarca thóin (Too much ass) Category:Celtic Category:Gaelic